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fast eddie

fast eddie

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a police station in kansas has a huge bike rack overflowing bikes it its parking lot. i asked an officer if they'd let me rummage but he said no. he did give me a phone number for the department i should call to ask. they're stolen and abandoned bikes apparently. the officer said they keep 'em and donate 'em to charity. im gonna see if they sell 'em at police auctions. i keep my nose clean now-a-days but i was very tempted to steal a stolen bike from the police station!! but i resisted, ill call like a good boy!
fast eddie outty
 
Olathe, which isn't too far from KC, has some up on govdeals.com right now.

Go ahead and call the number they gave you. If they bikes are meant for charity, they might be willing to sell you some if the money is donated to a police related cause, like the Fraternal Order of Police or any special Memorial Funds for the surviving family members of fallen officers. Or they might be willing to have you fix up a bike they could then sell at an auction or fund-raising raffle.

My guess is they just don't want to be bothered with the idea of becoming a bike shop and/or parts store, but that they also haven't thought about how a few key contacts in the bike repair world could benefit them. I don't see how they could donate all the bikes to charity, because to the average charity a bike with bent rims that's missing a seat is just junk. To us it has potential, but most charities aren't going to sell really beat up "junk" bikes.

If the cops don't sell to you, just try and find out who they donate to, and then check their dumpsters a couple of days after the donation.
 
Believe it or not the bikes dont belong to the police. They are found or recovered property. The police are just in charge of their care and keeping till the city of whatever decides how they want to get rid of them. Usually through some auction or other means of disposal chosen by the city. It would be like you walking in to their property room and saying "you have all these guns in here give me a few" and then wondering why they wouldn't. Be realistic ,your call will probably go to whoever is responsible for liquidating the city surplus .
 
I went to a local city auction here a while back where they had some bikes like that. Rest assured that when bikes are abandoned and unclaimed, it is usually because they are worthless. Bikes that cost $60 new, now beat up and rusted and all. Most of them in that auction went for $5 or $10. I have also seen some online auctions of these bikes, but you'd just about have to go look at them before you could bid online. I did buy two of those bikes, used some bearings off of a Huffy mountain bike, and took a coaster brake apart on a kid's bike just to see the innards.
 
We had 64 bikes this year and when the City Manager looked at how much the auction cost compared to what it brings in, he quickly realized that they were blowing money away. I directed him to a local High School that has a program for teaching kids of low income families, and others, on how to fix bikes. They were very happy with the donation and the City saved some taxpayer money. :D The cool thing about the program is that the kids get to keep the bike they decide to fix, a win-win proposal.
 
The auction I went to was a general city-surplus auction, took a half day or more, and bikes were about 20 minutes of that. They were selling impounded cars as well, and a whole bunch of furniture and odds and ends.

Speaking of city auctions, here's a doozy IF you happen to live in the area (these deals always seem to be on the other side of the country!):
http://cgi.ebay.com/Worksman-bicycle-70 ... dZViewItem
 

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